I forgot to say that Louis’s story reminded me of my father. He also had a black nanny/housekeeper when he was growing up. When he graduated from high school it was a very big deal that she was invited and his friends were shocked when my father gave her a big, public hug afterwards.
Isn’t it wonderful how people can rise above their upbringing?
My great-grandmother was bigoted in that she hated anyone who wasn’t her exact race . . .which was Irish. So she married someone I think was German or Prussian . . .
Her son-in-law had an affair with a black woman that (that being the affair) produced a boy . . . she loathed both of them. Wouldn’t tolerate them being in the same house with her. She pretty much hated anyone who wasn’t purely white, and from what I hear didn’t think too highly of my grandfather.
But she evidently also hated children . . . I shudder to think what she’d be like if she knew some of my relatives. Two cousins, in particular, who have a black wife and black gf between them.
I read your thread this morning, and was glad that my mother wasn’t prejudiced against any groups of people, as she is deeply religious and very open minded and everything.
But this afternoon my grandma invited me over for tea. Then I remembered that she was very prejudiced. But it seems kind of odd to me, as she doesn’t exactly hate certain groups of people, but overgeneralizes what she hears about individuals.
She started telling stories about how she used to work at a hotel. Then she said that the chef there was greek, and how he seemed kind of tempermental. So then she says, ‘Oh but you know who those Greeks are, they’d just as soon cut your head off as talk to you’, or something nutty like that.
Then, later on, I think she was talking about another person that was Greek, and was intelligent. So she says, ‘Those Greeks, they’re intelligent people. Y’know?’.
Sometimes its kind of funny, like when she was telling me about the time she worked at a candy store:
‘And sometimes people would come in and talk to me. There was this one woman who would come in every week. She looked like she might be a school teacher. She was always saying something to me. I suspect she must have always been drunk, you know, the kind of person who would go out to a pub on the weekends, y’know? No doubt she was always out hittin the bars, having something to drink. I suspect she was a school teacher.’
And she went on like that, seemingly creating random ideas, as all she could deduce was that the woman was talkative and liked candy. Yet obviously, according to my gramma, she was an alcoholic school teacher who enjoyed visiting pubs on saturdays.
maybe grammas just senile. anyhow, you really need to meet my gramma to know what I mean. and when she starts talking about those squirrels…‘BOLD as BRASS they are! unbelievable the way they just go up and eat that bird seed, uh? Bold as brass!!!’
This seems to be part of human nature - classify everyone, and create a list of priorities from best to worst. Everyone does this, some based on race or skin color, religion, sexual prientation, etc.
People who have themselves been oppressed are quite capable amd willing to turn around and do the same to others. Family members close to me are always talking about this race or that, using names I can’t mention here. Yet they have had to leave the land where they were born (partly) to get away from similar racism. Incredible. They feel superiority based on their race. Well, if the race is so great, why didn’t you stick it out in the other place and take over? Hmmm? What stopped you?
I can’t do the number described by some previous posters though, and get rude and crude with them. I prefer instead the gentle tug in the right direction, and the clear message that I disagree. The generation that most expresses this view will pass on, and the kids are definately not getting those values.
Oh, to let some of you know who may not have been out of the US much - there are many countries in the world where racial differences and stereo types are openly professed. I’ll name a few countries I’ve been to where I’ve seen this: Israel, Russia/Ukraine, Germany, Mexico. No hesitation on the part of various people to slam various others when they think they are among those with similar views.
Fighting Ignorance will take longer that anyone thought, maybe forever.
PS - I don’t think we are more polarized that in previous times. Rather, it’s become more acceptable to recognize this as a problem for our society and talk about it. Also, there are a fwe in the public spotlight who make this more of an issue.
I thank God everyday my parents are not racist in anyway (At least not that I know of). My BF is black, hispanic, and Paiute Indian. But my grandparents…that’s another story. When my dad’s parents found out that me and my BF sleep in the same bed, they FREAKED OUT. And grandma said “I don’t want you to be around that nigger.” Do you realize what that did to me? I was floored. I left their house, drove home, crying. We never brought it up again, and they have grown a bit more accepting of him. But one time, my grandfather, right in front of BF, referred to the Indians in the casino in Mammoth CA “Those damn thieving Indians.” I almost died. All of my BF’s family lives up there. But we didn’t say anything about it then.
My mom’s mother is like other examples. She’s not racist, she just doesn’t know any better. She once said to my BF “Why is your name Jaime? After your dad’s people?” That’s just the tip of the iceburg, but he quickly learned that my grandmother didn’t mean anything offensive by comments like that.
Though my uncle once said “Well, once you forget Jaime is black, he’s a pretty decent guy.”
I don’t talk to my family much anymore. I don’t want to. And when we get married, all of them are going to shit. That’s why I am eloping and I don’t plan on inviting any of them.
Well Louis, I’m proud of you! And so are my parents. You are what we call a mensch!;j
My parents are also bigots of the more benign strain. They get along just famously with an African-American friend of my uncle – they practically consider him part of the family. And for years they passed our hand-me-down clothes on to a not-so-well-off black family, the late father of which used to be a maintenance man at at apartment complex we lived at years ago. However, they are also the type who pretty much openly state that they don’t mind black people, it’s the n*****s that they can’t stand (yeah, I know, Chris Rock was funny as hell when he said that, but I think that when he did so, he validated the feelings of a lot of borderline racists). It’s that kind of doublethink that I find so perplexing. And my sister – Holy Christ, she thinks it’s a real insult to call me the N-word. And she thinks it’s hilarious to refer to black children as “niglets”, which always makes me want to disavow any shared genetic material between us.
But they’re amateur racists compared to my wife’s aunt and uncle, whose son knocked up a black woman, and who have since then refused to acknowledge his or their mixed-race grandson’s very existence, solely because of the race thing. <sigh>
My parents are pretty cool: they don’t judge off hand.
HOWEVER…occassionally, my dad will talk about a man who is Jewish, and he says, typical Jew, or something like that.
But like my mom always says, she’d rather me be with a black guy who treated me like a princess than a white guy who beat me.
(and vice versa.)
My grandparents can be racist, although not to people’s faces…
Neither do I. I just do not get it.
I remember once when I was about eight years old, the girl who lived next door to me at the time used the “N” word. I asked her what that was, and she said “Oh, it’s just another word for a black person.” I used it at home a little while later. The result was the longest, toughest lecture I’ve ever received that was NOT followed by a spanking or grounding. My parents understood that I was simply ignorant, so they couldn’t really punish me. But I was not allowed to hang around that girl anymore.
I was raised in a “content of the character” household. Race is the last thing I see, and when I do see it, it’s just another physical identifier, like hair & eye color.
My husband is a blues musician, and we live in Flint, MI, which is (when last I heard, anyway) 66% African-American. My kids will grow up surrounded by the African-American culture. It is in their lives every single day. I will do my best to explain to them what I know of it, and encourage them to ask others the questions that I cannot answer. They will be educated with and by people of many other cultures. This is good. On top of that, I’m a pagan, my husband is Christian, and my mom’s SO is Jewish. Her religious experience will be rich as well. My kids are going to be either really, really well-rounded, or really, really confused! I hope I can do a good job of making them the former.
When I was young, I never thought about it. IN fact, calling people black and white seemed silly to me, I always said, “No, Mummy, we’re peach and brown.”
But now that I am older, I do notice it…I keep worrying that I’ll say the wrong thing…society puts the racism into you.
I will say that I think EVERYONE is racist…to a degree, not that we think anyone is inferior, more just that we seem to notice race more. The question is: what do we DO about it?
My grandmother has never said anything overtly racist; I guess I’m lucky. Poor Roman Catholic grandma! Of her first three daughters, one married a Palestinian Moslem, one married an Iraqi moslem, and one married a Jew from California. I guess she learned to be open minded. She’s 93 now, so I guess it’s pretty impressive to have grown up in her generation and avoided the usual bigotry of the society of her day.
The Black community is a big one. I’m black, and I’ve never heard of Black hating Jews. So really, you can’t say “the black community” that’s including alot of people, who may not know what you’re talking about. 
Now I know personally, I can’t quite tell sometimes, but I have Jewish friends. I have ALLL types of friends, because I love everyone. But my grandmother once said, “the Jewish people went through hell just like we did, and yet they act like they are above us.” I don’t know where she got that from. But… must have been somewhere.
My family is from Bermuda. And according to them, racism wasn’t a big problem when they were young. But when they came to the States, and were treated so horribly, and hated even more for their British accents, a dislike for the white race overcame them. But… they got over it. They are just more cautious to the intentions of some whitre people. But it’s all love for me
Jenny*
Actually, I listened to a story on NPR on the way home yesterday about this very same issue (download it here). Part of the answer is the old generalization thing: Some particularly prominent Afican-Americans have made anti-Semitic remarks, and that gets generalized to the notion that the Black community as a whole dislikes Jews. Untrue, of course. Another part is that some early civil rights leaders felt that their Jewish counterparts were being paternalistic. Another part, I’m sure, stems from the same illogical reasons that whites have for being anti-Semitic.
One of my nieces married a divorced man. The guy had a couple of daughters from his first marriage, one of whom has a black child. She also has had some serious drug problems. Her child is as cute as a button and is as sweet as she can be. The woman herself seems to have overcome her drug addiction and is trying very hard to provide a decent life for her child.
My father will not allow the woman in his house, with or without the child, because she is a “n****r loving junkie whore” and the child is a “mongrel.” He will not attend any family function which includes this woman, for the reasons given before.
My father is ninety years old, a professed Christian who truly expects to find himself in an all-white, racially pure heaven in the near future. The saddest thing, to me, is that he cannot see the contradictions between Christianity and racism.
Oh man. Well (some of) my family still uses the N word even though I have one niece who is African American and a nephew who is Egyptian (they also use the term Sand N). When I call em on it they have no shame and they love my niece and nephew. I just so don’t get it.
Good…I’m glad you disappoint them.
My heart sank when I read that you weren’t allowed to go to the funeral.
I was playing with a couple of my friends when I was about seven years old, Merv was caucasian and the other (Ben) was East Indian. Merv’s mother told he and I later that she didn’t want us bringing that “black boy” over anymore…
I was really confused since my friend Ben wasn’t black so I went home and asked my mom what the heck Merv’s mom was talking about. She explained what racism and prejudice were to me and simplified it by saying “some people are just ignorant”. I didn’t like Merv’s mother after that and still think that my mother is one of the wisest people I know.
I told Merv what my mom told me because he was equally confused by his mother, we kept playing with Ben although never at Merv’s house.
Merv has turned out to be about as non-racist as they come and I often joke that I am the only white person in my house as Lola is Metis and our kids are a bunch of beautiful little “mongrels”.
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by LilCutie *
**
The Black community is a big one. I’m black, and I’ve never heard of Black hating Jews. So really, you can’t say “the black community” that’s including alot of people, who may not know what you’re talking about. Now I know personally, I can’t quite tell sometimes, but I have Jewish friends. I have ALLL types of friends, because I love everyone. But my grandmother once said, “the Jewish people went through hell just like we did, and yet they act like they are above us.” I don’t know where she got that from. But… must have been somewhere.
I wasn’t trying to make a blanket statement which is why I wrote “why does it SEEM” but that’s still to general
Sorry. I need to be more specific.
I still don’t get it. Logic would seem to dictate that the two most oppressed peoples on the planet would join forces. Course we’re talking human nature, not logic
Actually, logic would dictate that we’re ALL human, I would hope, and could accept people as they are.
Funny…
You know where I learned about the N word?
From a teacher, only this was NOT a bad way.
See, we were talking about how we should know what a word means before we use it-because we could end up REALLY saying something nasty. Apparently, a student had told her about Mexican “wetbacks” that morning, and the student thought it just meant a regular Mexican person. So then, she explained about how Blacks used to be called Negros. Then, she said, “And then SOME people started calling them N****s, which wasn’t very nice. And I don’t want ANY of you using that term!”
Funny, she was from the backwood mountains, and this was an almost ALL white Catholic school.
Like, I said, when my mom said blacks when I was little, I’d be like, “But they’re not BLACK, Mummy, they’re BROWN.”
To me, it wasn’t being nasty. I just thought, well, they just have darker skin, that’s all. And I’m not WHITE, I’m peachish…